a beautiful method

Steven J. Tepper sent out a request to various people looking for advice on “particularly good and
compelling examples of creative, parsimonious scholarship.” Here’s what he and those who responded came up with.

Lazarsfeld, Paul F., and Robert K. Merton. Freedom and control in modern society. In Friendship as a social process: A substantive and methodological analysis. Ed. M. Berger, T. Abel and C. H. Page. New York: Octagon Books, 1978 [1955]. (in VU library)

3 thoughts on “a beautiful method”

Wow. 40-50 articles and not ONE black sociologist? This made my stomach hurt. As a black graduate student, it’s so disheartening to think that my work my not be considered “particularly good and
compelling examples of creative, parsimonious scholarship.” Especially in the depths of dissertating, it’s so sad to know you will never be considered one of the best in your field if this is the way lists are generated.

I personally recommended the Chambliss paper, because I think it’s under-read. I bet that if we/orgtheory had purposefully constructed a list (rather than ask people about what articles came to mind), it would look quite different. But it’s still important to ask why the work of no Black sociologists immediately came to mind when writing in comments to Teppo’s post.